


From. Anonymous

by midnightshon



Series: From. Anonymous [2]
Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2019-08-01 11:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16283618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightshon/pseuds/midnightshon
Summary: “I killed somebody today,” the message read. “Please help.”





	From. Anonymous

**Author's Note:**

> The unread message from I Like You (probably) would finally be read here.

How ironic the situation would be: she, an important witness of a murder case, would be a victim of another murder attempt.

 

The last time she checked, no, a stare could not kill. It definitely could not – that no matter how strong, hatred alone would not be enough to burn the object of hatred. Yet the disturbing part was she was at the verge of being burned alive, and certainly it would be just a matter of seconds before she would be listed on the list of people whose cause of death was death glares – the first one on it, for that matter.

 

She felt overwhelmed, flabbergasted by the impossibility happening before her, lips shut tight, unable to defend herself. Any more seconds spent under those cold, judging eyes, and she would combust.

 

\--

 

A small movement was spotted from afar, of a young woman carrying several different things with her two hands. Standing across the field with an umbrella in hand, Son Seungwan waved excitedly at the silhouette, signaling her whereabouts, then crossed the field, knowing the other person would throw a tantrum if she just stood there and not come to fetch her with the umbrella.

 

“Thanks,” Seungwan flashed her brightest smile at the scowling woman.

 

“Remind me again why I agreed to queue for your coffee?”

 

Seungwan scooped the cup of coffee in question from her friend’s hold and kept her smile intact. “Because you’re my best friend and you love me so much.”

 

“And you almost got this friend of yours murdered by all the angry customers for cutting in line.”

 

“Aww, come on, Seul. It’s not that bad. Besides, you got Sooyoung to protect you from those murderers.” Seungwan could not stop herself from smiling as she spotted that thin layer of pink covering Seulgi’s cheeks at the mention of Park Sooyoung.

 

Kang Seulgi had been a friend of Seungwan’s since they were in high school and throughout their years in college. If there was one person who knew Seungwan better than herself, it was Seulgi, and vice versa. So Seulgi might deny it all she wanted, but Seungwan knew that she was secretly enjoying it every time Seungwan asked her to queue for that one cup of coffee at Sooyoung’s coffee shop.

 

Not that Seungwan was taking advantage of that – she’s just being nice, who knows maybe one day Seulgi would gather enough courage and confess to the barista during one of her many visits to the place.

 

“Let’s go, the broadcast’s about to start,” said Seulgi after recovering from her embarrassment, tugging on Seungwan’s sleeve, and dragged her to where her car was parked.

 

It was Thursday that day, the day a radio show both Seungwan and Seulgi were the DJs of aired every week. And like the good citizen that she was, Seungwan always asked to carpool with Seulgi, to save the fuel and reduce traffic jam – which would not work, according to Seulgi’s cynical mindset, unless they had one thousand Son Seungwans lived in Seoul.

 

“Oh, and here. Your beloved memory card. I asked a friend to fix it.”

 

Seulgi took out a tiny plastic box from her pocket and tossed it onto Seungwan’s lap, who received it with eyes twinkling in pure excitement.

 

“You did?” she asked, disbelieved. When she only got a simple nod of a head from her friend, she squinted at the girl. “But the data inside remain the same, right? Please tell me you didn’t get anything erased.”

 

Seulgi gave her a look before focusing her attention back to the road ahead. “I don’t know what it is inside that memory card that you’re so obsessed with, but I specifically told my friend to salvage everything.”

 

Less because she did not believe Seulgi than it was because of her anxious mind, Seungwan hurriedly open the box and got the memory card inside. She inserted it into the empty memory card tray in her phone then waited while it’s being read. A few applications she remembered saving in it popped up one by one, and Seungwan ignored them as she swiped to the last page where her favorite chatting app was located. Like a routine that she always did from time to time, she opened it and scrolled down, not bothering many new chats from friends coming in, until her eyes read one familiar name.

 

Bae Joohyun.

 

The latest message to that girl could be seen below her name: _좋아해_ – _I like you_.

 

Exactly three syllables of it as Seungwan remembered, and still with two empty, grayish checks to its left. It’s unread still.

 

“An embarrassing picture you’re afraid I’d accidentally leak?”

 

A question followed by a stifled giggle from Seulgi stopped her train of thought, and Seungwan reluctantly peeled her eyes off her phone. She smiled a half-hearted bitter smile in response, knowing which picture Seulgi was referring to.

 

It was a picture of Seungwan when Seulgi gave her a limited photo card of her favorite singer as a birthday gift – Wendy remembered raising her eyebrows a little too high and opening her eyes a little too wide – a reaction photo, Seulgi would call it, and it was uploaded to Seulgi’s public Instagram account. Seulgi had sworn to her that she did _not_ do it on purpose, that her phone must have a will of its own it uploaded whichever photo it wanted without Seulgi’s consent, but the label ‘Derp Queen’ had been tattooed on Seungwan’s forehead and there was no undoing it.

 

“Trust me, if it’s anything like that,” she said, “I can’t be any more grateful that it’s gone forever.”

 

They arrived fifteen minutes later. Greeting citizen who were already waiting for them outside the building, they quickly made their way inside.

 

The radio show they hosted, _From. Anonymous_ , was a show which read stories from listeners with a different topic every week. It leaned more towards the impromptu concept since stories which were read were only those that came in during the broadcast. The staff would monitor the incoming messages and selected the one which was okay to share, and both Seulgi and Seungwan were required to improvise with their reactions for each story. It was challenging as well as exciting.

 

“Listeners, you know how boring it can be while waiting in line, right?” Casually, Seulgi greeted their listeners with a question, garnering sympathy from each of them with a hint of tiredness in her voice.

 

She carried on the opening with, “I am one of those people who hate to stand in line. Yet, right before this broadcast, I queued for a cup of coffee as per our dear Seungwan’s request. I hate to wait in line, but I do it anyway because my friend asks me to. The favor that does not favor you in anyway yet you still do because you’re simply nice that way. Submit your story, and we’ll begin reading it shortly.”

 

The background music increased in volume and Kang Seulgi turned to Seungwan with a big grin on her face, one hand pressed to her cheek in a V sign gesture. Seungwan just had to roll her eyes at the display of dorkiness.

 

“That’s a lie,” she said, reaching out for the monitor in front of them to fix its position. Controlled by the staffs, the monitor was showing messages that started to come in being filtered. The keywords were _help_ , _favor_ , and _please_.

 

“What?”

 

“You _love_ to wait in line. Especially at Sooyoung’s.”

 

“Well,” Seulgi began, pausing briefly to clear her throat, “technically, I didn’t queue. I told you I was almost slaughtered for cutting in line.”

 

“Another lie then.”

 

“It goes well with the opening.” Seulgi pointed at the screen, averting Seungwan’s attention, “You can start with the first story.”

 

Seungwan would have said something more to that, but she noticed that ending note of the background music and their PD raising a hand from the control room, signaling them to be ready. Swallowing back a remark for her co-DJ, Seungwan focused her attention back to the monitor.

 

The broadcast went by smoothly. They received a lot of funny stories, most of it complaining in the same manner as Seulgi did but ending with the listeners boasting how nice they were for carrying on with the favor asked. Every time one story ended in such tone, Seungwan would comment how Seulgi had added one more person to her newly founded group of ‘nice people’, sarcasm intended.

 

Probably it was due to the short air time for the show, without them noticing, they had almost reached the end of the broadcast already. With five minutes left on the clock, Seulgi recited the scripted lines to begin the closing, thanking everyone who had participated, promising them she and Seungwan would read more interesting stories next week, and not forgetting to ask the listeners to tune in on the same day and time the following week.

 

As the ending song started rolling in, two staff came in with the automatic “you’ve worked hard” greeting. Both DJs instantly raised to their feet and bowed back, thanking the staff. Seungwan then did what she always did after broadcast, collecting all papers scattered on the table and handing them to the staff. Unlike usual, however, Seulgi did not do her part.

 

“I need to pee,” said Seulgi, answering Seungwan’s questioning eyes. “Meet me outside, okay?”

 

“Oh, sure. Find me in the control room when you’re done.”

 

Seulgi nodded back then excused herself from the room.

 

Stuffing her phone inside her jeans pocket, Seungwan made her way out of the studio and trailed the staff’s steps back into the control room which was situated exactly next door.

 

The control room was the second most familiar place in the building to Seungwan, after the studio. She always came in there to meet the team, usually before broadcast started, then she would bother one of the staff, the one who was in charge of filtering messages from their listeners, and asked him to let her read stories which were not read from the previous week broadcast. There were interesting stories there, and Seungwan thought it was such a pity they had so little time they could not read it all.

 

Though earlier she didn’t because she and Seulgi had not arrived that early. Hence her coming now while waiting for Seulgi.

 

The guy sitting before the computer screen looked up as Seungwan stopped by his desk. An instant reaction of scratching head greeted Seungwan’s wide smile in return. “I thought you’d forgotten your way to this room and I’d even thought of throwing a party to celebrate,” said the guy.

 

“I missed you, too, Henry Lau,” Seungwan responded sweetly, tongue automatically switched to English, and laughed a little louder at the bitter smile the guy gave her.

 

Henry Lau, the guy in charge of filtering listeners’ messages, was from Canada. Seungwan first learned of the fact after her second week being a permanent DJ for the show, all thanks to an accident involving spilled coffee. Since then, they became friends and with all the perks of friendship in Seungwan’s possession. Having the full access to all the unread messages from listeners being one of them.

 

“The one from last week is already labelled. You can read them, I’m getting more coffee anyway.” Henry rose from his seat, giving Seungwan the access to his PC even after acting reluctant about it, to which Seungwan replied with a playful punch on the guy’s upper arm.

 

Apparently, Henry was working on the messages from their broadcast just now. Some of the emails had been read and labelled with the date of broadcast. Some emails left unread on the page attracted Seungwan’s attention, and she decided on a quick scan through the email subjects before going  to read the one from last week. As tempting as it was, Henry would kill her if she carelessly opened the emails before he labelled them.

 

She spotted funny headings, such as ‘Late Night Shopping, Goodbye Sleep’, ‘Bought Vanilla Ice Cream, I Hate Vanilla’, and –

 

Her eyes stopped at the very first email, the latest one to arrive, and just stared at the very simple subject it had.

 

‘Please Help’.

 

The body message could be read next to the subject, and Seungwan did. Yet she blinked, then blinked again, refusing to believe what her eyes just read.

_This must be a joke._

 

And she was contemplating whether to open the email and called someone over to make sure she had not read it wrong, when her phone rang. A new message from an unknown number, and the message that popped up on screen paralyzed her.

 

It was the same sentences that were in the email. Same word structure. Same information relayed. Exactly the same message.

 

“I killed somebody today,” the message read. “Please help.”

 

\--------


End file.
